The Sinner Game
by lux ex tenebris
Summary: A Sinner Game is a dirty game. It's a game where your life is at stake. It's a devil's game. A game from devils for devils paid for by... those who sold someone's soul to the devil. The gamers? The ones whose souls have been sold to the devil.
1. Prologue - Stage 0

**The Sinner Game**

Prologue...

... in which Spencer transfers schools.

_"All sins tend to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is damnation."_ (W.H. Auden)

* * *

A Sinner Game is a dirty game. It's a game where your life is at stake. It's a devil's game. A game from devils for devils paid for by... those who sold someone's soul to the devil. The gamers? The ones whose souls have been sold to the devil.

* * *

Oh sweet baby jesus, how she hated firsts. First days of school, first times encountering someone, a first time trying out something. Today was no different from that. Today, she would be the "new kid" the "outsider from the country" or whatever other words her soon-to-be class and schoolmates would be thinking of.

She and her family moved to L.A. a couple of weeks ago, during summer , her mother had gotten a new job here in a major hospital. Unofficially, her mother had just wanted to get her out of Ohio.

They hadn't been on the best terms recently. The reason for that would have been that Spencer was gay, a lesbian. A dyke how her mother loves to call it whenever they end up having a conversation. Not that a normal person would call the few encounters they had an actual conversation. Yelling, screaming, insulting. That's pretty much all it was.

Anyways, so her mother - Paula - had decided she had to be taken away from the "bad influence", aka her girlfriend back home. Susan was her name. She and Spencer had been the best of friends - during that time Paula had loved the girl dearly - but discovered that either of them had feelings for one another eventually.

When she had found out about that, Spencer had been literally torn. She had been raised strictly by her parents, both of which were strong believers and followers of the local church. The people there, though, tended to be pretty extreme. They would not accept anyone who was just the slightest bit different from them. Who even dared to step out of line.

So, obviously, Spencer's "mistake" as they called it had not been tolerated. Least of all by her mother. Her usually very supportive father had just kept his mouth shut for most of the time. He neither judged nor defended her. Spencer had yet to find out what exactly were his thoughts on the whole thing.

At the moment, though, she all but cared about that. In her mother's eyes Spencer was a disappointment, a sinner, someone who did not deserve to be walking on this Earth. Jesus, it was just frustrating in all honesty. But there was not much Spencer could do given that she was only sixteen and pretty much still had to to what she'd been told. She hated leaving Susan behind and she hated the fact that she'd been forbidden to even see the girl before having to leave the place she used to call home.

Paula had found them kissing in her room. Mind you, she hadn't been supposed to be home yet already. Susan and her had been very careful not to be found out. Both of them had been aware that they would be in a whole lot of trouble if anyone found out. At that point they had been together for nearly three months - without any problems whatsoever.

Yet, that one day Paula just had to be home earlier. Neither of the girls had noticed her coming home and they were too lost into each other to really notice. When they did notice it had been too late: Paula had already been standing in the doorway to Spencer's room and was yelling from the top of her lungs. A deafening eternity later she somewhat had found her composure back and had dragged Susan out of her house - at her freaking hair.

Spencer had been fuming. The whole time she'd been yelling at her mother to let go of the girl and kept apologizing to said girl for her terrible mother. Susan had just looked entirely shocked and spooked. She never spoke during the whole ordeal.

After throwing the poor girl out, Paula sat down for a "talk" with Spencer. Which pretty much consisted on wording her own disappointment in a not-too-kind way. Spencer on the other side could not believe her mother. She had usually been kind and caring and after that point she had become a completely different person. A hateful person.

She had been and still was ashamed of Spencer. Her reputation in the small town had been ruined. Spencer never even knew that the woman cared for that at all - but apparently she'd been wrong with that assumption.

Obviously, she knew her parents wouldn't have been too thrilled of the thought of their daughter being a lesbian. But up to that point Spencer had been convinced that they would come around eventually. Apparently, she had been oh so wrong.

Paula grounded her. Like, really grounded her. She hadn't even been allowed to go to school anymore. Exams had been over and all that was left were only a couple of days of school so her mother decided it was for the best for her "healing". She didn't need healing. She didn't want healing.

Furthermore, she had taken away her cellphone. She didn't have any way to even contact Susan at all.

Much to her own surprise, she did find a rock through all of it. Her brothers. Clay and Glen. Clay had always been very supportive no matter what anyone did. Clay was her adoptive brother but she had always been closer to him than anyone else in her family. Even her father, whom she usually had been very close to - at least before she was forced to come out. Clay was incredibly smart. She was sure that one day he'd be very successful, no matter which way in life he chose to take.

Her other brother, Glen, was your typical jock. He was the local highschool's basketball star and had girls falling all over him to his left and right. She and him always had been on pretty bad terms but after her mother had started her little war against her only daughter, Glen had been oddly supportive.

She always expected that Glen would be especially disapproving of her lesbianism. Much to her surprise, though, he was not.

One evening, her mother had confronted her yet again about how wrong her way of living was and Spencer wouldn't hear any of it. Her mother ended up being so enraged that she was about to slap her. That very moment, Glen stood in front of her, taking the hit - protecting his little sister.

He ended up yelling at his mother as to why she had to be like that. He obviously could not understand it. And he was mad. He loved his sister no matter who or what she loved, he had told her. Spencer had been touched by the way he had defended her.

And ever since that evening, neither of her brothers would leave her out of their sight. One of them would always swarm around her, sometimes even both of them. When both of her parents had been working one afternoon, Glen handed her his cellphone saying she should call "her girl".

At that point, she still hadn't talked to Susan at all. That day, she finally did have a chance to do so. The other girl, however, would not answer her phone. From what Spencer had heard, Susan's parents had taken the whole thing a lot better than her own parents did. They had never really been a big part of the church-y part of the community so they were just a little shocked, but supportive nontheless.

Spencer ended up trying several times before her parents would get home, and eventually the other girl did pick up. Just hearing her voice helped Spencer a lot. The things she had been told in the end, however, were of little help.

Susan had said she couldn't do this. She had told her that she did love her dearly but that with her parents like that she had deemed it impossible for them to be together. She wouldn't have minded fighting for her, figuratively, but when it came to Paula she would have to fight her quite literally.

That evening, she and her first girlfriend had officially broken up.

Spencer had been heartbroken. And if it hadn't been for her brothers catch her that day, she would have fallen deep. She did fall pretty deep in fact, especially considering that after that day, her mother would try to "fix" her.

The day after, she had dragged a kind of doctor, or exorcist into their house whom she wanted her to talk to. He had told her that it was a bad thing, that it was her own cry for attention and all that. She had fought the urge to tell the guy to shut the fuck up pretty hard but she managed. She had ensured him that it wasn't just a phase that it was who she was and that they had to accept it.

When she hadn't responded in any way he would have liked he ended up throwing his hands up and just gave up on her, telling her mother she could not be safed.

Shortly after that, her mother had decided that they were going to be moving to Los Angeles, so she'd be far away from her girlfriend - who hadn't even been her girlfriend anymore but Spencer didn't mention that. She had told her that moving to L.A. wouldn't change a thing, though. In fact, she would have many more opportunities there. Her mother wouldn't listen, though.

Spencer had felt terrible, especially for her brothers. They had been there for her the whole time and now they ended up being dragged to another place.

They had ensured her it was fine, though. Clay loved the opportunities he would have there. The new school they had picked had a lot of really good programs that would end up helping him a lot.

And Glen was pretty mobile anyway. As long as there were girls and basketball he'd be happy.

So now, there she was. In front of her new school - King High - on her very first day of school. She and her brothers had arrived at the school together, but since they were in different classes, Glen and Clay had already gone their respective ways. Her first class was Literature. She had no clue where exactly she was supposed to be going.

As she idled down the hallway trying to find room 402-Literature, she didn't really pay much attention as to where she was going. She also didn't notice the person standing in front of their locker searching for something inside it. The moment she did notice, two bodies were stumbling to the ground, one cursing, one apologizing.

Quickly getting up, she finally snapped out of her mind-wreckage.

"Oh my god, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there." She tried helping the other person up, only to have her hand swatted away.

"Watch where you're going," came the grumbling reply.

In front of her a brunette girl slowly stood up, after gathering all of her things that had been swatted across the floor. She was a little shorter than Spencer herself and had rather short, curly hair. Chocolate brown eyes were shooting daggers at her as the girl noticed she was pretty much eyeing her.

"I'm really sorry. I was kind of lost here. Today's my first day."

"Just watch where you're going and save your lifes tory for someone who cares," the girl snapped and just stomped away, leaving Spencer pretty dumbfounded.

What a bitch. But hell, what a hot bitch in her black mini skirt and dark-blue tank top.

The bell ringing through the hallways reminded Spencer that she had just missed the beginning of class.

Another five minutes of searching around, she finally found the room she was looking for - room 402. Carefully knocking twice, she stepped inside the room, just to be greeted by roughly twenty-five pairs of eyes staring at her. One of which belonged to the female teacher standing right in front of her now. That very moment Spencer felt incredibly self-conscious since the whispers started right away and filled the air in the room.

The teacher eyed her suspiciously, probably waiting for her to speak up as to why she's too late. Feeling tiny under the stares, she cleared her throat and spoke up:

"Sorry that I'm late. Today is my first day and I had trouble finding the room." Her hands started to feel sweaty. She felt pretty damn uncomfortable.

The teacher's stern look turned a little softer.

"Ah, you must be Miss Carlin. Don't worry about it, this building can be a little confusing at first. I'm the Literature teacher Miss Stein. Let's not try making coming late a habit, though, alright?" She winked at her after the last sentence and Spencer had to fight a blush.

The teacher didn't look bad. She seemed to be in her late twenties or early thirties and was apparently not married. She had long legs, partly hidden by a black skirt that went to her knees. She wore small heels which complimented those slender legs. Her ample chest was covered by a white blouse, the top botton was left open. A thin silver necklace graced her neck. Spencer's eyes wandered up to her face, as the teacher had turned back to the class, looking around for a place for her to sit. She had long, dark-blonde hair that she had put up in a ponytail, exposing her neck. _Which looked pretty tasty_, Spencer thought to herself.

Miss Stein had a small nose and pretty luscious lips. Her eyes were in a light-grey colour. She definitely was forming a crush on her Lit. teacher.

After a few moments, the teacher's face lightened up, as she finally found an empty seat.

"It seems like the seat next to Miss Davies is still unoccupied. So from now on, this is where you'll be assigned to."

Spencer just nodded her head and smiled at the teacher, before looking around for whoever Miss Davies might be.

"Miss Davies, if you'd give Miss Carlin a little sign so she knows where to go?" Hm, odd. The teacher didn't sound too happy about talking to whoever this other girl was.

Slowly, so very slowly a lazy hand got lifted up and Spencer's eyes travelled to where her new seat would be. The other girl was sitting in the last row, at the window. She seemed to be rather short, since she couldn't make her out behind the other students.

Spencer walked to the last row and put down her bag before sitting down. In the meantime, the teacher continued with whatever lecture she had been giving to the class before Spencer had interrupted.

The girl next to her had her arms folded on the table, her head resting on top of it. She was starting out of the window. _That explains why the teacher didn't seem too fond of her I guess_, Spencer thought to herself.

The girl's hazel locks and dark-blue tank top were pretty much all Spencer could make out. Dark-blue tank top... Slapping her forehead, she realized she was now supposed to sit next to the girl she had ran into earlier that day. _Oh joy._

She considered trying to talk to the girl again. From the way she was sitting and her earlier behaviour, though, that didn't seem to be the best idea.

Luckily for her, most of the other students in class seemed too preoccupied with other things to really pay attention to her. Most of them were busy talking to one another.

She could make out some of the whispers, too.

"This new teacher is pretty hot."

"I wonder what happened to Mr. Walker, he seemed fine when I saw him the other day."

"It's not really like the old Walker to suddenly take a day off."

So apparently Miss Stein was new at the school herself. _That explained why she was so emphatic about me not finding my way around._

_Well, she did seem nice enough so why not enjoy the teacher while she's around. She was eye-candy for sure._

As she kept pondering around about her new school, Spencer suddenly felt oddly sleepy.

Looking around, the other students seemed to have trouble staying awake as well. Before she had time to think about what was going on, she had already entered the world of dreams.

The sun was shining on her face, waking her from her slumber. Spencer stirred a little, feeling oddly exhausted and so very tired. She lifted her upper body up and got into a sitting position, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

Her hands touched the ground next to hear, and she could feel sand. _Sand?!_

When she opened her eyes, everything seemed wrong. In front of her was the sea, its waves moving towards the sand and away in a regular interval. She took a quick look around, standing up. That turned out to be a bad decision, though. Her legs felt like pudding. Trying to keep her balance, she felt completely out of place.

Behind her was a forest, it looked pretty much like a tropical rain forest!

Splattered around the beach were several students, most of them seemingly unconscious, others slowly waking up. Something was very wrong.

Was she still dreaming? And if not, where the hell was she?

* * *

That's it for Stage 0. Not much happened yet, eh?

The next stage is sure to come though. Learn about the game's rules, partying on a deserted island. The small path between sinner and winner.

Find out more in Stage 1 - Acedia.


	2. Acedia - Stage 1

**The Sinner Game**

Acedia Stage 1...

... in which almost everyone enjoys the sudden holiday.

_"Thou seest how sloth wastes the sluggish body, as water is corrupted unless it moves."__**  
**_(Publius Ovidius Naso)

* * *

A Sinner Game is a dirty game. It's a game where your life is at stake. It's a devil's game. A game from devils for devils paid for by... those who sold their souls to the devil.

* * *

It wasn't before long and most of the students had slowly woken up. After she had convinced herself that the whole situation was indeed not a dream - that included a lot of pinching and splashing water into her own face - Spencer had accepted that something had happened.

The only thing she did not know was what exactly that "something" was. She was confused to say the least and she really had no idea if they were being punked or if something bad had happened.

While the other students were still waking up, Spencer had gone to a rock at the shore and climbed it more or less successfully. She was still sitting there at that point. By now a lot of the students were either relaxing in the sun or completely panicking. She had decided to take her distance and sort out her own thoughts.

The rock she was sitting on let her oversee most of the little shore she and the rest of the teenagers had woken up in. It was an u-shaped little sandy beach that had a small rock formation to its right and left side side - like one where Spencer was sitting now.

As she gazed towards the sea, all she could make out was water. And some rocks. It seemed like the farther you went into the water, the rockier it was getting. After around ten meters there were a lot of high and spiky rocks reaching out of the blue.

Behind the small shore was a deep forest. It seemed tropical. Spencer could make out some palm trees and other pretty high ones, some of which she had never seen in her life.

Most of the students had still been asleep when she had woken up. She could recognize some faces, which meant that at least part of her class had been assembled there. In total there seemed to be around eighty or maybe even one hundred people all over the small beach, though.

It was confusing, oh it was so very confusing.

Sighing, she considered her options: It could have been some kind of prank. Then again, why play a prank on that many people?

It could have been some tradition at their school. Then again, why were some of them panicking? Was it just an act? She doubted it.

They could have been kidnapped. But then once again, how the hell do you manage kidnapping that many people and just drop them off on some tropical island?

No matter where her mind went, nothing made sense. Part of her hoped they were just on some really closeby island, maybe some party island and right at the other end of the forest was some big resort.

A big part of her doubted that, though. For some very odd reason she had a really bad feeling about the whole situation.

During her small inspection of the surroundings, Spencer also noticed that there were only teenagers. No adults at all whatsoever. Miss Stein also was nowhere to be found. Part of her suspicious consciousness thought that the teacher must have had something to do with... whatever situation it was they were in.

The first thing she had tried after somewhat coming to her senses was to take out her phone and try to call for help. Not with much avail. There was no signal.

As she kept an eye on the waking school kids, she noticed that everyone seemed to be in pretty much the same situation: No signal at all. One girl, she seemed to have hispanic blood in her - was especially fuming about the situation.

The latina had asked pretty much every single person on the small beach to let her use their cellphones. With every phone she had in her hands, she tried dialing a number - every single time she failed.

Near the end of her attempts, she had thrown some poor kid's phone on the ground, its parts falling in all directions. After that she had just been sitting down, silently cursing to herself and loudly cursing at other people.

What did peak her interest a little - even given the odd situation - was the person the latina had been sitting with. The one and only hot brunette she'd been sitting next to in literature class earlier.

It was that girl's face that made Spencer realize she indeed had been stranded with her classmates. While other faces seemed oddly familiar, this girl's curves and looks were burnt into her mind.

The girl, Davies, seemed distressed. While she tried to put on some "I don't care, let's just enjoy the free vacation" demeanor, she kept fidgeting nervously.

After she had said those words, though, the latina and some other guys had started taking the situation a whole lot more lightly. Not before long, a horde of at least twenty people had gathered around them, happily chatting and drinking whatever drinks people had with them.

Right, that was another thing. For some reason everyone had their bags and other belongings that they had with them during class. Even Spencer. And she was a hundred percent sure that she was NOT holding said bag when sitting in the classroom.

No matter where her mind wandered, all that she found were more and more questions.

One of the biggest questions, however, was that time seemed to have stopped. She wasn't sure if anyone else had noticed yet, but the sun hadn't risen at all ever since everyone was awake. It seemed to be in the middle of the night, the moon shone brightly, though, thus illuminating their small shore.

And Spencer was sure that they indeed had been on the island for a while now. Both her watch and her phone had stopped as well - timewise. They both displayed 12am. Never one to usually be spooked by things like that, given her current situation it just added up to her uneasiness.

While she was unsure what exactly to do, she couldn't agree with the students just partying around like that, turning on music on their phones. Nobody could know just how long they would be on the island. Maybe there was no food or clean water there - they sure as hell couldn't be drinking the salty sea water - and those idiots were just wasting away possibly life-saving supplies.

It did make her fuming, yes - but she was not the kind of person to butt into other people's business like that. And in all honesty, the way they were acting kind of scared her at times.

Yelling, screaming, suddenly bursting into laughing. They reminded her of her brother Glen but in a bad way.

Another thing she did think about was that people were bound to notice that everyone had gone missing. Glen and Clay would try to find out what happened for sure and most of those kids probably had someone in their lives to worry about why the hell they weren't coming home as well.

Once again, she had no idea where they were, though - so how was someone else supposed to find out?

Sighing once again, she decided that no matter how long she pondered, she wouldn't find any solution.

She slowly got up, stretching and looked around again. The people around Davies still seemed to be occupied with whatever they were doing, even though Spencer couldn't spot the brunette eye-candy anymore.

Most other people had gathered around in small groups as well. Some of them were seriously discussing what could be done while others just pretty much cried for their mothers. Spencer felt terribly out of place.

One thing she was proud of, though, was her talent when it came to survival stuff. She had always been mesmerized by the idea of survival trips, climbing, any kind of camping and the likes. Before things went downhill, she and her father - sometimes also her brothers - would go on trips on several occasions throughout the year. Their last trip led them to the frosty landscape of good old Canada. And it had been one heck of a trip.

She wanted to go explore the island. From what she had seen from her rocky viewpoint, it didn't seem all that big - now she could be wrong - but she did definitely want to find out.

However, it was still dark. While the moon did illuminate most of what she could make out right now, there was no way to know what could be waiting inside of the jungle behind their backs. Dangerous animals, bottomless pits or maybe some tribal people who would try killing them. Her imagination was running wild.

While she didn't want to risk wandering too far into the forest, she decided it would be a good idea to at least make a campfire, though. It wasn't all that cold but the night seemed creepily never-ending and the heat from stress and excitement were bound to go down at one point.

Which is why she decided it would be for the best to try collecting some small sticks and maybe branches. Luckily, she did always carry around a lighter, so lighting the whole thing should be the easiest part.

There were indeed quite a couple of dry sticks spread across the beach. Walking around, she started collecting them and carried all of them next to the spot she had originally occupied. She had already made a small circle with some of the loose rocks she found lying around on the ground.

By now she had found enough things to ignite the fire itself, however, she would need a least a couple of branches to actually keep the fire going for a while. She did spot some on the beach, they were drenched, though. She would have to go closer to the forest, even though she was not too fond of the idea.

She looked around again, deciding on a spot where to near the forest. It seemed, that so far nobody had dared going in there. While she was still considering where exactly to go, the sound of someone clearing their throat behind her almost startled her to death. Flinching, she ripped her head around only to find herself staring at a grey-eyed brunette girl. She was wearing a white and grey V-neck shirt and had a washed-out also grey leather jacket on top of it. It was unzipped. Her dark, almost black denim jeans looked pretty washed-out as well and had holes in them every now and then. The girl who had approached her was rocking back and forth on her converse shoes (also grey, this girl sure seemed to like the colour) and was looking down on Spencer, who was still half-kneeling in front of her soon-to-be campfire.

Eyeing her suspiciously, she got up and now was on eye-level with the girl. Giving her a questioning look, she was waiting for the intruder to speak up since she was the one who approached Spencer after all.

"Ummmm, hi," the brunette unsurely started talking. Her clothing style surely didn't indicate her to be as shy as she seemed to be.

"Yea, hello," Spencer was unsure if the confusion was written all over her face but apparently the girl caught on, finally trying to get a grip.

"Sorry for startling you. I'm Kyla. I think we were both in that literature class together. And ummm... Yea! I saw you sneaking around the beach and it looked like unlike everyone else you were at least trying to make something of the situation... So ummm... I was wondering if I could lend you a hand?"

So people did notice her wandering around.

"Sneaking?," she snickered, "I wouldn't call it that. But yes, I was trying to make a small fire since it's kind of dark and it's probably gonna get colder at one point, too."

"The whole thing sounded a lot better when I thought about what I'd say earlier, I swear," the other girl rolled her eyes, letting out a small embarrassed laugh.

She did seem decent enough to Spencer. And a helping hand wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

"I can imagine," she still couldn't help but smile at the failed attempt to offer her help smoothly.

"Anyways," Kyla cleared her throat again, "would it be alright if I kept you company? All those guys with their permanent party mood are starting to get on my nerves."

She motioned her head to the group of teenagers that had gathered in the center of the beach around Davies earlier.

"Well, they're making the best of it in their own way, I guess." Spencer just shrugged as she bent down again to cover the sticks to make sure they stayed dry.

"We're God knows where and all they do is party? I don't get it, really."

"Tell me about it. But believe me, I wrecked my brain earlier trying to figure out what's happening and I didn't really come to any useful conclusions either."

Laughing, Kyla bent down next to Spencer watching what the girl was doing. "So stranger, need a hand?" She was smirking at her now.

Smiling back, Spencer got up and motioned to the forest. "We will need some real wood now. As much as I don't like the thought of getting too close to the forest, I don't think we can keep shunning it forever. And call me Spencer."

Thinking about what Spencer had said, Kyla started nodding her head in agreement.

"The forest does seem pretty creepy. You're right, though. There's obviously wood in there any maybe some other kind of supplies."

"And possibly death a bunch of random death traps," Spencer sighed.

Both girls fell silent shortly after. They did decide to go to the forest, however, they agreed to stay close to the beach so they could just scream for help if anything was to happen. They approached the forest and tried listening to any possible dangerous sounds, not hearing anything. After checking around the nearby vicinity, they found it safe enough to start dragging out some smaller branches. To Spencer's delight, they were able to find some that were mostly dry. They also managed finding some dry leaves which would definitely turn out to be helpful when it came to igniting the fire itself.

Every single time the two girls finished carrying a couple of branches back to the soon-to-be-campfire one person or another would end up offering them their help. Not before long, Spencer had gathered her own small survival group, some of them asking her for what they could do, others being able to provide some useful ideas by themselves.

By the time they got enough wood to keep the fire alive for a while and were about to light it up, there were pretty much two big groups on the beach - the party group and the survival group. Even though the survival group was a lot smaller than the party one. All other people were now split up and just grouped together in pairs of two, sometimes also three or four people. Some teenagers were sleeping, others still tried their luck with the phones, some were still crying and tried to wake up from whichever nightmare they found themselves in.

The party group had turned on their music even louder by now and one of the guys seemed to somewhat have become their leader. He was screaming and yelling all over the place, before he and everyone around him would be breaking out into hollering laughter.

In between one of his many noisy bedtime stories he had been telling the others for the past couple of hours, he noticed the fire that Spencer and her "group" had finished making. It was then, when he decided that the fireplace would fit perfectly fine into their party.

He whispered something into the ears of some of the bulkier guys around him, before he and four of those guys left their "party zone" and approached the campfire.

The people who helped Spencer collect the wood had finally settled around the fire, exhausted from both the situations they were in and the many trips of carrying wood to the little campsite. Some of them were silently chatting, others were drifting off to sleep, feeling at least a little safe in their small group of survivalists.

The "party king" and his bodyguards approached the fire, the guy himself stepping on a poor boy's hand who just stumbled out of the way, scared.

"Thanks for the fire folks," the jock spoke up, "we'll be taking out party over to this place here now, sooo shoo shoo." He made a shunning motion with his hand to tell them they weren't welcome.

"Are you kidding me?" It was Kyla who dared speaking up against him, "We're working our asses off and you really believe we'll just let you have the spot? All you did all day long was just babbling around, yelling, screaming. We've worked to get this fire up and I sure as hell don't want you here."

She was practically shooting daggers at him with her eyes.

"Awww, Ky. So this is why you weren't around anymore? Come on, baby - share the love." He was obviously making fun of her.

"Fuck off Bryan. You're not welcome here so just go back to where you came from."

Bryan McGee was the heir to a fortune created by his plastic surgeon father and lawyer mother. He tended to believe the world belonged to him. That he could buy anything and anyone with his money.

Furthermore, he thought of himself as a sex bomb. He'd fucked around with more girls in the past year than many other kids his age would be in their whole lives. He and Kyla had a short relationship as well. When she didn't feel ready to let him jump her just yet, he simply went and got his fun somewhere else. Bryan was around 6 foot tall and had short blonde shaggy hair. He wore a Jersey that said "King Lions" - it was the name of their basketball team - and had it unzipped. Under it he wore a white wife beater which showed off his muscles - he did seem to train a lot at least. He wore a pair of baggy jeans and blue sneakers as well. Not all that attractive, but the money did help out a lot with that.

"No can do baby girl. You see. Josh and Brad here are pretty cold," he pointed at two of the muscular guys who came with him, "and they want to move the party to your little campfire," he finished with his toothy smirk.

Most of the people around the fire had already fled the scene. Nobody liked to dare going against Bryan. He was a bully and an asshole and people were pretty much just scared of him. Spencer had yet to know who he was and Kyla did try to stand her ground, but not before long, it was only the two of them who were still sitting there.

"You see? All of your little friends got the message already." Smiling in triumph he screamed over to the rest of his group to come over to where they were. One person after another approached the fire, bringing along music, laughing and screaming.

So much for the peaceful campfire.

Kyla was fuming. After he shooed away all of the people who had helped making the fire, he just ignored the fact that she and Spencer were still there.

Spencer sighed in her spot and got up. Kyla shot the girl a questioning look who in return just nodded her head inclining to move to another spot.

After a little, Kyla did follow her. She looked around for Spencer for a little and found that the girl had started collecting firewood all over again.

"What are you doing?"

"Well, seeing that our spot got taken... I'll just grab stuff to make a new fire."

"You're just going to let them do that?"

"Look at them and then look at me - there's not much I could have done to convince them to peacefully give up the fire they just stole away from us. Look, I'm definitely not happy about it and I'm exhausted. But gathering some more wood shouldn't be too hard. Especially if we can convince the others to help us out again," she motioned to the roughly ten other people who had helped them earlier and were now eyeing them.

She just motioned for them to follow her back into the woods, which some of them actually did. Spencer herself was surprised that people just agreed to do what she said easily like that but by then she was far too exhausted to really take notice of it.

After another thirty minutes of carefully collecting wood without going too deep into the forest, they could finally settle down in front of their own little fire - this time hopefully without anyone trying to take it away.

During the whole time, Bryan and his friends kept listening to music and actually roasted some bread and sausages on the fire - apparently some of them did bring food to school today. Her rumbling stomach reminded Spencer that she had planned on trying out the cafeteria that day thus not bringing any food with her. She really hoped it would be getting brighter eventually, she would have to find a way to get a hold on some food and she found it a lot safer to do so without darkness around.

Noticing the blonde's stomach's noises, Kyla decided to share the little that she had - the other girl did help her after all. She sat down next to Spencer and popped up a bag of chips and opened her can of coke. She offered either to the other girl who - after looking at her oddly before her stomach went off again - accepted some of it with a small blush on her face.

Not too long after, exhaustion took over. Most of the people around the fires were slowly but surely drifting back into the world of dreams. When Spencer felt the sleepiness taking over, part of her hoped that she would wake up in the warmth of her own bad, the whole thing but a bad dream. She doubted it, though. Before she fell asleep, though, she wanted to make sure that they would be taking turns so someone watched over the camp at all times. Her thoughts started drifting around the situation again, distracting herself from her own plans and not before long she was fast asleep with the rest of the teenagers.

****A piercing scream made her almost jump out of her skin. The scream soon was followed by other, similarly piercing ones and the sound of girls crying. When the air was starting to be filled with gasps and the sound of people vomiting, Spencer forced herself to open her tired eyes.

Slowly getting up, she moved over to the circle of people who apparently had formed around whatever caused the many outbreaks in the first place. Making her way through the bodies obscuring her view, she found herself rushing back to throw up as well just as quickly.

What she had seen would forever be burnt into her mind. After emptying the little that had been in her stomach, her ears were ringing and she could feel darkness take over her again as her mind was steadily haunted by what she had seen: The distorted body of Bryan McGee - with his arms and legs torn off and spread in a circle around him. It looked like he had been mutilated by some kind of animal. His limbs had clearly been ripped off. And there had been so much blood.

It had to be the start of something - something very bad. Just what the hell was going on?

* * *

And so the killing starts. LET THE GAMES BEGIN!


	3. Acedia - Stage 2

**The Sinner Game**

Acedia Stage 2...

... where the panic begins to rise.

_"The slothful are always ready to engage in idle talk of what will be done tomorrow, and every day after."_ (John Lyly)

* * *

A Sinner Game is a dirty game. It's a game where your life is at stake. It's a devil's game. A game from devils for devils paid for by... those who sold their souls to the devil.

* * *

After the first moment and panic about what had happened to Bryan, the camp had become eerily quiet. Bryan's body was in the middle of the beach and everyone had scrambled into a place as far away as possible from him so the people were pretty much sitting in a circle all around the beach.

There were some kids who left the beach shortly after seeing the body. The had run off into the woods thinking their current location wasn't safe enough. Some other kids had tried to keep them from doing that - namely the ones who had helped Spencer with the campfire - but the others wouldn't listen to them, saying they knew better that the beach was too dangerous.

Of course that made sense. The beach that you could somewhat overlook would seem dangerous if nobody noticed that Bryan had been killed without anyone noticing anything. Then again, if the beach you could overlook was already such a danger, then just how dangerous would the woods be where who-knows-what could be lurking around in the darkness?

Spencer stirred, slowly waking up from her involuntary slumber. The sight had been too much for her. At first after coming to her senses it took her a moment to realize where she was and what had happened. As it dawned on her she felt sick in her stomach right away. After a little more she remembered Bryan. As that thought came back to her, she shot up immediately, almost knocking over a person who had been sitting with her.

After she had passed out, Kyla had taken care of her. While she hadn't been feeling well herself, she at least managed to stay conscious. Throughout Spencer's little trip to dreamland, Kyla had to face her share of trouble as well, though.

Not too long after everybody had discovered the body, Carol - Bryan's by now ex-girlfriend - had approached her. The girl had seemed to be very exhausted. Her eyes were red and puffy, the tears still lingering in her glassy look. Her nose had been red from repeatedly blowing her nose and the shock was still visible in her whole being in itself.

Carol was a 5'9 girl with ash-blonde hair. Her deep green eyes would usually sparkle in the sun. They had lost a lot of their charm the way she was looking at Kyla that very moment. She liked to dress.. let's be honest - slutty. She usually wore tight and short skirts with short tops that revealed her toned stomach and a pair of heels no normal person would want to wear all day long, day by day.

She did have a nice face. It was obvious why Bryan had been with her. She had a small nose and luscious lips. The day of their disappearance she had been wearing a small gold chain around her neck with a small golden basketball on it - a gift Bryan had made her.

Said normally attractive girl then had been hovering over Kyla, the sad look in her eyes changing into one of fury. The shorter girl had been unsure of to what exactly the girl had wanted from her but that question would be answered shortly after.

One thing that people tended not to like about Carol was her voice. Some would describe it as noisy. Others preferred to call it screechy. Yet again others would just cover their ears and run away.

Swallowing hard, the girl stood proudly in front of Kyla her gaze now even more furious than it had been mere moments ago.

Before the girl even had a chance to ask the blonde what was wrong, her beautiful voice rang through the endless night:

"It was you!," she had said pointing a girl at the brunette girl.

"You killed him!" She then had been holding a finger towards Kyla accusingly.

"Everybody knows you were jealous because he had dumped you. That you were hurt! That you didn't like how he tossed you away because you weren't good enough for him!" She was shrieking at that point.

If the situation had been different, Kyla would have laughed. First of all, she was anything but mad or jealous over the fact that she and Bryan were no longer a couple. In fact, she was grateful for it. She had always hated herself for letting the guy treating her like a piece of meat and just going along with it.

Secondly, how the hell was she supposed to rip off someone's limbs? A bigger and stronger guy's at that? Under different circumstances, Kyla would have laughed at the other girl's accusations.

Seeing what kind of place and suddenly weird life they found themselves in and adding in that a small crowd had started to form around them, all she did, however, was to just stare at the other girl dumbfounded.

It wasn't before long that the other girl spoke up again: "You and him argued earlier. You weren't with us when he... When he died," her voice was starting to break again, "you had the perfect reason and you probably had your little sicko friends help you with it!" People then turned their heads towards the small group who had helped the girls with their campfire earlier.

"So you're pretty much saying, my little Kyla here ripped out big bad Bryan's arms and legs like Wonderwoman?," an amused yet annoyed voice then spoke up from behind the brunette.

"I mean, I know that she can be pretty strong for her size. But don't you think Bryan could have just fought her off in the blink of an eye? And I highly doubt that she and any of the kids she has been hanging out with since we got here would have the strength or the tools to even do something like that to the guy."

Before the blonde could even speak up again, the other voice continued, "besides, how long do you think we have been out? It couldn't have been more than maybe two or three hours that really everyone of us had been asleep. Do you honestly think ANYONE here would be able to do something like that in said amount of time? I'm not saying we shouldn't be worried about what happened because we sure as hell should be, what you ought to stop doing would be to not accuse my little sister here of being a murderer or anyone else of us at that matter."

Finishing her little speech, the girl sat down next to Kyla for a moment while she kept eyeing Carol in front of them. Instead of still furious she now looked lost and confused. When she had no idea what else could be said, she was the first to storm off into the woods, followed by a few of Bryan's other friends.

After realizing there was nothing more to be said, all of the bystanders went back to their own business as well. As much as they had loved someone to be responsible for it, it was indeed very unlikely that Kyla had done it.

"Where have you been anyway?" Kyla then turned her head to her latest visitor. Spencer was still resting with her head on the girl's lap at that point. Kyla wasn't sure why but she did trust Spencer while being on this island. Not only did she seem responsible but also smart enough to be of help. And she had a feeling that the two of them could be good friends and that the other girl might've done the same had she been in their situation. So she had been sitting close to where Spencer had first collapsed (she couldn't move the girl too far, she was in fact not Wonderwoman after all) and had put the girl's head on her lap so she would at least be a little comfortable.

"Me and Aiden went off into the woods earlier. Bryan and his gang got too noisy after a while and I still had and have no idea just what is going on here."

"Yet you were the one suggesting to party in the first place."

"I wasn't even serious!", the girl threw up her arms to make her point, "I was confused and just. Uh, I don't know. I just didn't feel like it anymore."

"Good enough," Kyla chuckled, "so what are the woods like? Anything of interest?"

"I'm not too sure. We didn't go that far in after all. There seems to be a mountain marking the other side of the island. There also was some small river not too far away. I checked the water, it didn't taste salty. I honestly couldn't see much else it was just too dark. And well, there were sounds everywhere so it was kind of freaky. So we just came back a little after that. When we got back, most of the guys around you had already been asleep and it seemed like Bryan and the others were about to call it a night, too. We just found some place for ourselves and fell asleep there. Woke up to the commotion like pretty much everyone else."

Finishing up her speech, the girl took a deep breath. She had been rambling quite a bit which was normally unlike her. It was only then that she noticed another person being in their immediate proximity and started eyeing the girl suspiciously.

"Who's that?"

"I believe, Ash, that's the person you've been complaining about before we got here," Kyla laughed at her older sister's face as realization dawned upon her.

"Oh," was all the brunette muttered as a reply. Taking a real look at the girl sleeping on Kyla's lap, she couldn't help but notice her beauty. While she did look awfully pale, her long blonde hair was hanging loosely over parts of her face. She couldn't help but notice that she had the urge to carefully bring it back in place while stroking over the blonde's skin. The girl had beautiful long legs one of which was put closely to her body in a protective manner. The dark-blue jeans she had been wearing were ripped at some parts - it seemed like that had happened recently. The girl wore a black T-shirt which had kind of moved up given her position thus revealing her stomach partly. Once again, Ashley had the urge to touch the other girl in order to reposition the clothing article.

Noticing how much she noticed about the other girl, Ashley shook her head. She wasn't interested in people. Especially not amazingly beautiful blondes who just run into other people like it didn't matter. She then found herself wondering about what colour the blonde's eyes would be. They probably had a deep colour, one in which you could lose yourself forever.

Wait. She was losing track again. This had to stop.

"Anyways, seeing that you're alright here I'll go back to Aid. He said he wanted to go back to that river so we can at least make sure we have something to drink."

In response, Kyla just gave her a worried look.

"Don't worry. I'll be back soon. And you have company anyways so I'm not too worried about things here either. I'll catch you soon!"

And with that, the other girl was off again.

Back to the current situation, when waking up Spencer ended up smashing the back of her head against Kyla's chin. The other girl whimpered at the rough contact while Spencer couldn't help but swear at the sudden pain making its way through her head.

"Well, that's a nice greeting," the brunette girl smiled while rubbing her chin.

"Damn, I'm sorry Kyla. I just suddenly felt lost and wasn't sure where I was and then I remembered everything and..."

"It's okay, it's okay," Kyla interrupted the girl who seemed to be about to go on a rant, "are you feeling better now?"

"Putting the headache I just got myself aside, I'm okay I guess. Everything's slowly coming back and that's what's making me feel very uncomfortable."

"I get what you mean," she said glancing over at Bryan's body, "any idea about what we should do?"

Spencer thought about that question for a moment. It was obvious that the beach was not a safe spot for sure. She still didn't like the thought of going into the woods as well, though. Whatever had put Bryan into the situation he was in probably was living there. What if it came back to hunt for more people, though...

"I honestly don't know. Until we know for sure who or what did this to the guy I don't even know if any place on this island could be considered safe enough to stay at. What we could do is to decide on a spot to stay and and keep watch. Take turns sleeping and watching. Maybe always two people? I'm not sure."

She was rubbing the back of her head now. Those thoughts didn't do her headache any good.

"You're right. My sister said that there was a small river not too far into the forest so at least there will be water. I really don't like the thought of staying here at the beach, though. It scares me," Kyla replied looking over at Bryan's body again. She could feel a shiver running down her spine.

She was glad, though, that someone was willing to give up some of their clothes to cover the body with it. The sight had been too much, and it kept reminding people of what kind of dangers were lurking on this cursed island. Not before long, the body would start to smell and that was another problem. Yet another thing that kept Spencer's mind busy was that the body might attract wild animals. Possibly even the one that originally did this to Bryan.

No matter where her mind went to, the result was always the same: The beach was, in fact, not safe. And most likely neither was the rest of the island. The only question was, which part of the island would be the least dangerous.

Sighing, she put her hands behind her back and stretched, popping some bones in the process. She was feeling incredibly stiff from having fallen asleep on the ground twice and not getting a lot of sleep altogether.

The next issue was hunger. Even though after what happened with Bryan she did not have much of an appetite, however, it would happen eventually. And she didn't have anything. While Kyla did provide her with some food, that wouldn't last them more than a day either. The river was a start that meant water. So they'd at least have something to drink. Maybe there would be some fish as well - they were able to make a fire after all.

"Maybe we should go to that river you mentioned earlier to see if we can move the camp there," she finally spoke up.

It took Kyla a moment to realize the blonde had spoken to her. Whipping her head into the other girl's direction she opened her mouth to say something but then noticed she had no idea what exactly to reply to it so she closed it again.

Spencer was looking at Kyla seriously and expectant. She did want an honest answer to the conclusion she had drawn. Seeing that the brunette seemed to try to make something out of what she had said, she began to explain:

"There's water. That means we will at least have something to drink. And since we will need to solve the soon-to-be food problem as well we might get lucky and find some fish there. I'm not sure about the fish part but maybe there will be some edible plants and things like that as well. I don't know too much about them but maybe someone else around here does. Heck, we're on a tropical island maybe there's even bananas or mangoes or something like that."

Kyla was still looking at the taller girl thinking about what she had just explained her. It did make sense and she would welcome any idea to leave the cursed beach. She was scared of the place. However, the thought of going into the deep dark forest unnerved her as well. She wasn't sure what exactly they should be doing.

Finally realizing that Spencer was waiting for her to put in her two cents, she tried considering her next words carefully.

"I'm not sure Spence. I mean what you said does make sense but..."

"You're scared?," the other girl offered.

"Like hell I have to admit."

"So am I Kyla, so am I. I just don't like the thought of sitting around here being an easy prey. Maybe we can find some people somewhere on this island. I do kind of doubt it but you never know. Or maybe there is some kind of abandoned harbor where we can find a boat. Or maybe we can make a raft or anything but just idling around here."

Kyla looked around at the other people still sitting on the beach. She had overheard a conversation between two girls of the cheerleaders earlier. Nancy and Jacky. Jacky had wanted to do something similar to what Spencer had just suggested but Nancy was too scared or lazy or whichever. So she had suggested to just still use today to get their thoughts together and worry about what to do tomorrow. She had said the same thing after they just woke up on this island. It was unlikely she'd ever want to do anything constructive. Jacky had just willingly agreed, her former determination blown away in an instant.

Shaking her head at her own insecurities, she made her decision:

"Okay, Spencer. Let's follow that plan of yours. It can't be any worse than just sitting here and doing nothing waiting for whatever there is to kill us."

The other girl just smiled in reply.

After they made their decision they ended up talking to some of the people who had helped them yesterday again trying to convince them to join them on their little expedition. The more people would be with them, the safer it was likely to be. At least they would have their backs - they hoped.

Before setting out, they all put out whatever they had with them.

They spread everything out on the sand in front of them to have a rough idea of what they'd be working with. In the end they did have some useful and some rather useless things:

There was three large towels, five bottles of water, two small bottles of perfume, a bottle of really expensive and high percentage alcohol (who brings that to school, really?), two bags of chips, some chocolate bars, a lot of different make-up utensils, some tissues, ten phones, some paper and pens, a few spare shirts and track pants, a can of dog food, pairs of keys, a small pocket knife, a pair of scissors, five pairs of bras, Spencer's and someone else's lighter and cigarettes.

Taking in what little utensils they had with them, Spencer had an idea. She took the alcohol bottle and inspected it. It said Stroh Rum 80%. Woah, that was some heavy stuff. She really did wonder why someone would bring that to school.

She turned to William, the owner of the bottle, "Do you mind if we use this?"

"You wanna get drunk now? Really?"

"Gosh no. I want to make torches so we have at least a decent light source. This stuff you have here will burn well. And we can cut the towels into stripes to use them on sticks - which we can find easily nearby the forest entrance - and then we can make a couple of them."

"Oh," he started thinking, "sure that makes sense. Go ahead."

Nodding in reply, Spencer thought about why a quiet-looking guy like William would be bringing heavy stuff like that to school. He was pretty short, maybe half a head shorter than her. He had black, shaggy hair and wore a pair of rimmed glasses on top of his small nose. His lips were thin and tightly pressed together thus forming a thin line. He had minor acne all over his face and seemed to have the habit to look the the left and right quickly with his light-brown eyes. It seemed to be a nervous habit. He was very slim yet wore a baggy black AC/DC t-shirt and dark-grey sweatpants.

He really wouldn't strike one as the kind of person to be a heavy drinker - but then again you never know.

After having put aside one of the towels, the bras, the bottle of Stroh and the pair of scissors, Spencer asked Kyla and another girl, Sandy, to go look for two or three branches that they could be using as the sticks for the torches. In the meantime she was busy cutting the towel into roughly a hand length wide parts that would be long enough to wrap around the torches. After that she removed the underwires from the bras and bent them a little to test how far she could move them. More or less satisfied with the results, she put everything in place and waited for Kyla and Sandy to be back.

It didn't take the other two girls too long and they had arrived back with a selection of eight branches - unsure of what exactly Spencer would be looking for. Chuckling at the two girls, she picked out three that looked most usable - straight ones neither too long nor too short.

She wrapped the cut-off towel parts around the sticks and used the underwires of the bra to make sure it stays in place. After finishing that process with the first soon-to-be-torch she tried swinging it around a little to test its stability. As neither the underwire nor the fabric seemed out of place, she put her handiwork down proudly.

She then did the same with two more sticks and had three undrenched torches placed in front of her. The kids around her were eyeing her curiously, apparently very interested in the survival tipps and tricks they were learning.

After that, Spencer opened the bottle of Stroh and carefully put the liquid on the clothed part of the stick. She tried not to use too little but as well not too much since there was no knowing how long it would have to last in the end. Once again, she repeated the process for the other two torches and then closed up the bottle safely.

"That's it," she then spoke up, breaking the all-surrounding silence, "now we only have to let it dry for a while and we can use them."

She then turned to Kyla: "You said it was your sister that found the river, right? Where is she now? Do you think she'll lead us there?"

"Ummmm... She's back into the woods to look for more stuff. I'm not sure when she'll be back. So.. ummm..." She was obviously stuttering. She doubted Ashley and Spencer would get along. And the last thing she wanted was her sister and the survivalist to end up arguing. She didn't want to lose either.

"Hm, I see. Don't worry that's okay. I'm sure it won't be too far away so we can make our way there. And maybe we're lucky and she shows up before this stuff here is dry enough to be lit."

Spencer sat down after that, feeling oddly exhausted again already even though she didn't even do that much. The other people quickly followed her example, sitting down and enjoying the silence in each others' presence.

As always, that comfortable silence would not last long though. Yet again, a piercing scream sounded through the air.

"Noooooo, let go of me you sick bitch!" A voice sounded from not too far away. Everyone suddenly turned their heads towards the source of the noises. It was the cheerleaders Kyla had noticed earlier - Nancy and Jacky - the taller of the two girls, Jacky, was being pulled up by her long black hair by a figure clad completely in black. They could only see the back of the person. All you could see were black heels, black leather jeans and a black coat. That and long dark-blonde hair cascading over the person's back.

The person was holding the other girl's scalp by her hair, dragging her higher and higher. The blue-eyed girl tried to fight, her arms clad in a blue sweater flailing around but seemed to be utterly overpowered as the person in black suddenly held her hands together behind her back and just kept dragging her head closer to their face.

The person seemed to be whispering something into Jacky's ear. After that the girl's face lost all of its colour. She seemed pale and terrified to death. Her jeans-clad legs had stopped moving around in a frenzy as well.

To everyone around, the next moment happened practically in slow motion. Where the person had been holding Jacky on her hands, they suddenly seemed to pull just a little and the girl's arms came ripping off, sending a pool of blood all around. That was when people first started reacting. Screaming, running. Nancy, who had been right next to Jacky was routed to where she was standing. So was Spencer. She couldn't take her eyes off the person in front of her.

They seemed familiar. They seemed oh-so familiar. And that terrified her even more.

After the person was done with Jacky's limbs - which were now tossed all over the beach and creating trails of blood all over - they turned to Nancy who was crying and shivering at the person's feet. The person then tossed the remainder of what used to be Jacky away and bent down to Nancy.

It was sick. It was scary. And most of the people had fled into the woods by now. Only Spencer, Kyla and William were still on the beach together with Nancy and what was left of Jacky and Bryan.

The black-clad person once again whispered something. This time to Nancy. The girl's face was all dirty, wet black trails running down from her green eyes. Her lips looked swollen and her red short hair was a mess. Similar to Jacky, Nancy seemed shocked at the revelation that had been made to her. Her breath hitched in her throat and then she started crying uncontrollably. Spencer then noticed the girl was chanting the same phrase over and over again:

"Please, I don't wanna die. Please, I don't wanna die..."

Spencer eyes widened in shock. Whoever that was really did come to kill people. Would they be next?

Before she had time to think a ripping sound rang through the air. Shortly after, a leg - dressed in a pantyhose with blood smeared all over it - was thrown right in front of Spencer. She could feel the urge to throw up again and did so shortly after.

It was too much. Just what was happening?

Just after that, the person in black was chuckling. It was a sickening sound that now filled the air. Or rather it seemed like the voice was directly in her head. The person then turned around and started walking towards where Spencer, Kyla and William were cowering.

As Spencer somewhat got a grip of herself, she realized just who it was that was walking towards them. Illuminated only by the moonlight, Miss Stein who just killed two of her former students now made her way towards them.

There was nowhere left to run.

* * *

Is it the end for Spencer already? Just who or what is Miss Stein? Find out more in the next and final stage of Acedia.


End file.
